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“The Wheel Of Time” Season 2, Episode 6 – Just Give Madeleine Madden The Emmy Already

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON TWO, EPISODES 1 – 6, AND BOOKS 1 – 3, AHEAD!

This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here would not exist.

Nearly the entire ensemble cast of Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time are deserving of Emmy-award nominations and wins for their work in season two; and in a fair and just world, where awards-show voters actually respect the fantasy genre, they might have a chance. Realistically, it’s a long shot. Practically the entire cast of Game Of Thrones were nominated every year that the show was running, and still only Peter Dinklage ever took home a trophy for the role of Tyrion Lannister (four times, which in my opinion is simply egregious when Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, and Maisie Williams were all right there). Thrones‘ critically-acclaimed spin-off House Of The Dragon and Amazon’s grandiose Lord Of The Rings prequel The Rings Of Power have eight and six Emmy nominations, respectively – neither of them for their qualified casts. So The Wheel Of Time, with its relatively smaller fanbase and cultural impact, definitely faces an uphill battle.

Madeleine Madden as Egwene al'Vere in The Wheel Of Time, standing in a dark room wearing a large golden collar and breastplate, all of one piece, over a long-sleeved gray dress. Her dark hair is pulled back into a braid. Her face is bloodied and bruised.
Egwene al’Vere | moviesr.net

But its arsenal includes at least five actors who stand a cut above the rest of their peers, who might actually have a chance at a nomination if Amazon campaigned them aggressively. We’re talking Oscar-nominee and Emmy-award winner Rosamund Pike (whose phenomenal performance in season one, made up of countless microexpressions and miniscule yet purposeful mannerisms, was quite frankly snubbed); Zoë Robins (who anchored the series’ best episode in her fragile depiction of rage and vulnerability), Peaky Blinders star Natasha O’Keeffe (who, besides being delectably monstrous in her role, also confidently models the costume department’s finest assortment of outfits, from ostentatious black leather to sophisticated pantsuits); Tony-award nominee Kate Fleetwood (who plays The Wheel Of Time‘s most complex character and has some of the best lines of dialogue), and of course, Madeleine Madden. It’s Madden, I think, who has the best shot, given the overwhelmingly positive reception from critics and audiences to episode six, Eyes Without Pity, which hinges on her intricate, multi-faceted portrayal of a woman beaten into believing she is less than human.

The episode opens with Madden’s Egwene al’Vere being dragged by a leash to the so-called “kennels” where the Seanchan keep damane (women who can channel the One Power), and that’s arguably the least of what she endures over the next hour of brutal psychological torture inflicted by her sul’dam, or handler. The golden collar placed around Egwene’s neck, called the a’dam, immediately restricts her from channeling except when her sul’dam permits it, and sends her into full-body spasms if she tries to hurt her sul’dam, or touch anything she intends to use as a weapon against her sul’dam. The a’dam – and by extension the damane – is controlled through a matching golden bracelet worn by the sul’dam, which also cannot be touched by the damane. The sul’dam seemingly never has to touch the One Power herself to manipulate its use by the damane under her control.

These rigid rules are clearly laid out and demonstrated for Egwene and the audience in an episode which masterfully expands on a single sentence in The Great Hunt, where Egwene recounts being unable to touch a pitcher of water for three days straight because she once thought of breaking it over her sul’dam’s head. Madden delineates every emotion that passes across Egwene’s bloodied face and through her trembling hands as she’s made to reach, again and again and again, for the pitcher, causing her to convulse in pain; the initial anger and sense of injustice at her situation, giving way to hopelessness and desperation, the wave of relief and even pride when she succeeds, followed by disgust at herself for feeling that, and worst of all the paralyzing doubt that maybe this is what she is, what she deserves to be, what she was meant to be. Egwene is unbreakable, so we’ve heard, but this episode tests that theory and utterly shatters the illusion that anyone can stay entirely sane and self-assured under this kind of ceaseless physical, mental, and emotional duress. The seed of doubt, allowed to germinate in a person’s mind, can break even the strongest and proudest – as is confirmed when we see Maigan (Sandy McDade), formerly of the Blue Ajah, now glass-eyed as she sits in her cell, emotionlessly repeating back to herself the rules of being a damane – and the Seanchan are particularly good at planting those seeds and nurturing them.

The scenes with Madden’s Egwene, heartwrenching as they are from her perspective, would be not much more than traumatic if her scene-partner – her sul’dam Renna (Xelia Mendes-Jones) – weren’t equally formidable and complex. Reading the books, I pictured Renna as just shy of stereotypical: nauseatingly bubbly, speaking down to Egwene in a cheerful American Southern accent, treating her as one might a miniature poodle. People like her exist, and they’re terrifying, but her dehumanization tactics are exaggerated to the point where it’s almost too easy to write her off as unrealistic. The television series did something ingenious with Renna, not by making us feel for her (never that; Renna is herself a victim of brainwashing as well as its perpetrator, but that by no means absolves her of guilt), but by showing us how her inhumanity is rooted in the most easily exploited human emotions – because she’s not merely coming from a place of callous disdain for Egwene, but of genuine disappointment in her for not understanding that the Seanchan just want her to serve her true purpose, and that she will be happy when she learns to be obedient.

The Seanchan rank high amongst author Robert Jordan’s most original creations, and the depiction of them in the adaptation – from their customs down to their costumes – is not lacking. If the Roman Empire were ruled by Texans from the future, that would be the Seanchan. Their High Lady Suroth (Karima McAdams) governs the captive city of Falme from a chaise lounge in the palace, where she entertains minor nobility by showing off the “exotic” Westlanders she’s reduced to the position of da’covale (essentially slaves) in her household, including Ingtar Shinowa (Gregg Chillingirian) and the Ogier Loial (Hammed Animashaun), the latter of whom she pulls out as a party trick, demanding that he sing for her…and not just any old song. Treesinging, the ability to manipulate the growth of plants and other living things with one’s voice, is a Talent now exclusive to the Ogier. This marks the first time we’ve seen Treesinging onscreen in live-action – though the animated Wheel Of Time: Origins shorts released alongside season one did briefly touch on it – and it’s mesmerizing both visually and sonically. Suroth, however, soon grows displeased with the attention being on Loial, and interrupts him with demeaning applause and shrill laughter.

Elsewhere in Falme, Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins) and Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney) lay low and investigate the secrets of the a’dam itself, working on a bracelet and collar stolen from the Seanchan by Ryma (Nyokabi Gethaiga), an undercover Aes Sedai of the Yellow Ajah who leaves a large and lasting impression in just a few minutes of screentime. Gethaiga has an extended action sequence near the end of the episode that is not only imaginatively choreographed, with Ryma reversing Yellow Ajah-specific Healing weaves to blind, burn, and break attacking sul’dam, but laced with some of the episode’s most poignant, quietly devastating moments, as she begs her injured Warder Basan (Bentley Kalu) to kill her before the Seanchan can get their hands on her; too late, ultimately, to prevent either his death or her collaring. Nynaeve, watching from the window of the safe-house where moments before Ryma helped her channel through her Block, is deeply affected (and perhaps inspired to join the Yellow Ajah herself one day?).

Nyokabi Gethaiga as Ryma in The Wheel Of Time, from the shoulders up. She is wearing a brown vest over a bloodstained yellow floral-patterned blouse, and has a gold collar around her neck. She has dark hair piled up on top of her head. She is sobbing.
Ryma | Twitter @QuoteOfTheWheel

There’s a stark contrast between Ryma’s understanding approach to Nynaeve’s Block and how Aes Sedai at the White Tower pressured her to follow their methods, berated and beat her when those methods inevitably failed, and wrote her off as a lost cause because they ultimately decided they couldn’t mold her into what the Tower believes an Aes Sedai should be: cold, distant, aloof. From Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood), if nothing else, Nynaeve learned that the myth of Aes Sedai detachment from the world is just that, a myth, and that even the most seemingly heartless woman at the Tower only is the way she is because she was forced to leave behind something she loved. But the Tower in its current form is an unsustainable and self-destructive institution, rooted in exploitation and manipulation. Liandrin literally swore fealty to the Dark One because underneath her frigid exterior, she’s still human, and she can’t let go of her son, the only thing that’s ever been hers. But through encountering Ryma, Nynaeve may be realizing that there is another way forward, that this is not how the Aes Sedai have to operate, and in fact they cannot if they are to survive the upcoming Last Battle.

That brings us to Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okonedo), the current Amyrlin Seat, under whose reign the cracks in the Tower have only continued to spread, growing wider and deeper. Siuan has done her best to bridge the divides between conflicting Ajahs and assure her political opponents that she knows how to bring the Aes Sedai intact through this latest catastrophe, but it’s also been seven episodes since we last saw her fulfilling her duties as Amyrlin, and in that time the Tower has only fractured further. Aes Sedai sent unprepared to deal with the Seanchan threat, captured or killed; Accepted and Novices kidnapped on Tower grounds; rumors swirling of a secret eighth “Black Ajah” made up entirely of Aes Sedai sworn to the Dark; and all of it met with apathy from the Amyrlin and her administration. To be clear, I would not personally have written Siuan, one of my favorite characters in The Wheel Of Time, to be this removed from goings-on at the Tower, but I understand there was likely difficulty in getting the busy Okonedo back for season two, and her slim screentime then had to be narratively justified. We’ll get into my problems with Siuan’s (mis)characterization in my review of episode seven.

For the time being, I just wish we could have seen more of what Siuan was doing that necessitated her being away from the Tower for so long in-universe, because the “visit to Caemlyn” excuse has been used twice now, and even I, as a book reader, have no clue why Siuan would be spending more time in Caemlyn than in Tar Valon with the Last Battle imminent and the Dragon Reborn counting on her to rally support for him amongst the Aes Sedai. Queen Morgase, Elayne’s mother, is in Caemlyn at this early stage in the story, but more importantly, so is Elaida do Avriny a’Roihan of the Red Ajah, Morgase’s advisor and a future antagonist. Is it possible that Siuan is receiving advice from Elaida on matters related to the Dragon, behind Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike)’s back? It would certainly explain her own hostile attitude towards both Moiraine and the Dragon, Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski), in episode seven, without removing her agency entirely; which would be the case if she were under Compulsion, say.

Moiraine, by now accustomed to giving Rand directions from the passenger seat of their little clown car, begrudgingly trades her preferred place at his side for the far less comfortable backseat in episode six, as Rand stops to pick up the Forsaken Lanfear (Natasha O’Keeffe) in the World of Dreams, trusting her judgment over Moiraine’s. There’s a fascinating push-and-pull dynamic between Moiraine and Lanfear, these two highly intelligent and calculating women; the one with Rand’s best interests (arguably) closer to heart never as effortlessly sincere-sounding as her (ostensibly) self-serving rival despite being bound to tell the truth at all times. It’s an interesting commentary on how women are expected to make themselves more “approachable” if they want to be listened to…but not too much so, or they’ll be demonized for it.

In the real world, Rand is mostly paired up with Dónal Finn as Mat Cauthon; the first time that Finn, who replaced Barney Harris, has shared substantial scenes with one of the main cast (although he had fantastic chemistry with Zoë Robins and Marcus Rutherford’s Perrin in the mirror-world). He and Stradowski are easily believable as lifelong friends, and their reunion is moving. Min (Kae Alexander), who by this point in the books has already resigned herself to falling in love with Rand because he’s ta’veren, is in close proximity and dissuades Mat from staying with Rand because of what she’s seen in her prophetic visions, but – oddly – doesn’t encounter Rand at all, meaning that general audiences will have gone another whole season not realizing they’re fated to be romantically involved. And I don’t know if they’ll meet again until season four, roughly halfway through what was initially planned to be an eight-season series.

I’m of the possibly controversial opinion that Rand and his first love Egwene are uniquely magnetized to each other, and I think it’s evident from their brief meeting in the World of Dreams, a meeting facilitated by Lanfear, that The Wheel Of Time always had its most powerful romance in this coupling of two characters that can never be together because the books put them on diverging paths. Even Lanfear herself can feel the electricity racing in the air as Rand and Egwene reach for each other across the very fabric of reality – the pained half-smile on her face betrays her stomach-turning realization in this moment that Rand’s heart will never be hers, that she’ll gladly make Egwene suffer for it, and that in so doing she’ll hurt Rand too.

Natasha O'Keeffe as Lanfear in The Wheel Of Time, sitting with her legs crossed on a black stone throne in the middle of the desert. She is wearing a black dress that leaves her left arm bare, thigh-high black lace-up boots, and a black leather harness. A black lace crescent-moon headdress sits on her head. She has short jet-black hair.
Lanfear | winteriscoming.net

I have nothing else to add or reiterate except that the acting on this series really is phenomenal, and it’s not hyperbolic to say that several members of the main cast – Madeleine Madden most of all – deserve Emmy nominations, at least. I’m not expecting much (awards show voters being pretty notorious for watching very little television in general, much less high fantasy), particularly this year with the long gap between the second season’s release and awards season, but I remain hopeful that as The Wheel Of Time gradually gains popularity and becomes more mainstream, it will grow harder and harder for awards shows to justify shutting out the cast entirely. Either way, I’ll keep clamoring.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10

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High Camp Meets High Fantasy In “The Wheel Of Time” Season 2, Episode 5

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON TWO, EPISODES 1 – 5, AND BOOKS 1 – 3, AHEAD!

This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here would not exist.

I’m not sure how Robert Jordan would feel about me describing his books as campy. But that’s beside the point. His books are campy, and delightfully so. The Eye Of The World, the first book in what would grow to become a fourteen-volume series spanning decades, was published in 1990, and hailed as a radical return to the classic formula that initially made high fantasy successful after a decade of the genre being dominated by weird, esoteric science-fantasy and grim, hypermasculine sword-and-sorcery, but far from being just another tired take on the hero’s quest, The Wheel Of Time is distinctly fun, right down to the iconic, endearingly garish cover of the first book that depicts Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) as a seemingly three-foot tall woman with a beehive updo sitting sidesaddle on a white pony, riding alongside a hulking samurai. It’s a colorful blend of the poetry and profundity of Tolkien and Le Guin’s seminal works, the vividly pulpy imagery of Brothers Hildebrandt artwork from the 70’s, and the wild romanticism of McCaffrey’s Dragonriders books, rolled up into the strongest, trippiest joint you can possibly imagine.

(Left to right) a Seanchan soldier; Fares Fares as Ishamael; Karima McAdams as High Lady Suroth; Jessica Boone as Alwhin; and a second Seanchan soldier. Ishamael is wearing a black leather vest over a long-sleeved white shirt with dark trousers. He has dark hair slicked back, and a dark beard flecked with gray. Suroth is wearing a rust-red scale-patterned coat with a long train bunched up around her feet, over an orange vest and teal-blue gown. She is bald apart from a strip of dark hair down the center of her scalp. Alwhin is wearing a bronze-colored scale-patterned jacket and a long rust-red gown. She has dark brown hair neatly arranged in geometric buns on the side of her head, and her face is partially covered by a mask. They are all standing under a teal-blue and rust-red canopy in a lavishly furnished room with hanging lamps.
Ishamael and High Lady Suroth | press.amazonstudios.com

Of course, grabbing a little bit of everything encompassed by the fantasy genre means that, inevitably, a few unsavory or downright icky ingredients make it into the mix. Every book in the series is as dense as the day is long, and the lore only gets more incomprehensible the deeper you go. The rules of Jordan’s gendered magic-system are extremely dated, and he writes women like he heard about them once from fragments of an ancient, poorly-translated myth. The queer representation, even if progressive for the time, is still abysmal. It’s a difficult book series to recommend for all these reasons. But if you happen to enjoy camp, there are the fabulously-dressed, morally-ambiguous middle-aged sorceresses to consider. The eccentric and overtly queer-coded villains who throw masquerade-balls and tea-parties in their spare time, fierce young women put through the ringer both emotionally and physically, and numerous hunks with romance novel-ready hairstyles, many of them stoic and brooding and deeply repressed, are a nice treat, too.

And of course, there’s the kink and eroticism, can’t forget all the kink and eroticism.

While Amazon’s adaptation of The Wheel Of Time may not be skewing close to the plot of the books in its second season, the series has never been more faithful to the essence of the source material than it is right now, simply by being unapologetically fun, bold, and at times a little bizarre. I mean, we were straying into surreal territory already with the Trial of the Arches, but I think Lanfear (Natasha O’Keeffe) donning a BDSM-inspired all-black leather outfit to seduce submissive farm-boy Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) in the World of Dreams might be what finally convinces the average viewer that this is not another Lord Of The Rings or Game Of Thrones, and it’s not trying to be, either. The Wheel Of Time was made for the girls and the gays. Unintentionally? Perhaps that’s what Jordan would say, but there’s no way showrunner Rafe Judkins – a gay man himself – doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Episode five is high camp from start to finish, opening on the masked High Lady Suroth (Karima McAdams) having her foot-long lacquered fingernails clipped with a sword to symbolize her fall from grace, and closing on O’Keeffe’s Lanfear debuting her dominatrix look. Every minute in between is practically dripping with the homoerotic subtext that Jordan injected into so much of his writing; somehow most palpable when Lanfear and Ishamael (Fares Fares) are onscreen together, going over their plans. While they circle each other with a hungriness in their eyes, both wearing oversized, open-collared nightshirts and sipping wine from enormous goblets, there’s one thing on both their minds, and it’s Rand al’Thor (an underrated hilarious aspect of The Wheel Of Time is the fact that Rand is Just Some Guy™ in this Age, but all these three-thousand year old entities with enormous power remember him as someone completely different, and much more impressive). The Forsaken take turns toying with each other’s emotions – and demonstrating their prowess in the World of Dreams – by conjuring lifelike images of the sheepherder lying in Ishamael’s bed, while they loom over him. Ishamael even snuggles up to him and caresses his face at one point. I legitimately believe things would have escalated further if Ishamael hadn’t been woken out of his pleasant dream by something in the real world that was no doubt far less interesting to him.

Mind you, this isn’t the first time Ishamael has shared an intensely erotic scene with one of the ta’veren boys – I have not forgotten how he force-fed Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) in episode three while making uncomfortably prolonged eye-contact with him – nor is it the last, but this is the first time in the show I think it’s unequivocally clear that Ishamael’s obsession with them has an undercurrent of sexual attraction. There’s certainly a debate to be had over whether The Wheel Of Time has enough heroic queer male characters in its cast to get away with portraying the main antagonist as a gay man, but anyone who’s watched any Disney animated movies can tell you that it’s the campy, queer-coded villains who make the strongest impression, and there’s no denying that Ishamael has been a highlight of the second season, his jovial nihilism unexpectedly endearing.

The fact that he looks and dresses like the grizzled, older, sexually adventurous wealthy businessman on the cover of a very filthy Wattpad fanfic is another point in his favor – and I don’t just mean because he’s very attractive for those who are into that sort of thing. The trope of a queer male villain besotted with a straight male protagonist is quite common. It’s rare, however, to see a queer male villain portrayed with such raw sex appeal, and that changes the whole dynamic. There is nothing loathsome or pitiable about Ishamael, nothing ineffective about his preferred tactic of seduction. He is potent, affecting everyone who comes into his orbit and leaving them shaken even if they manage to pull away. Take Perrin, for example. If he wasn’t bisexual before meeting Ishamael, he is now.

Put a pin in that, we’ll get back to it later. I’d be remiss for not first praising the scene-stealing performance of Natasha O’Keeffe as Lanfear, a juggernaut in black leather thigh-highs. She was holding back on us in the role of Lanfear’s alias, flighty, free-spirited Selene, diminishing herself and her presence to match what Rand wanted from her, but as Lanfear she effortlessly dominates the screen, a dismissive flick of her wrist the most motion required to pop a man’s skull like soap-bubbles or stitch a woman’s mouth shut with intricate needlework. She seems to take joy in doling out these and other sadistic punishments for the minor offence of existing in her vicinity, but no pride. She does not swagger or brag to intimidate those she does not see as her equals. Everything humans have built and accomplished in the last three-thousand years since the Breaking is of little interest to her, or provokes a mild disappointment. But then, even the other Forsaken who survived the Breaking, powerful as they are, earn her derision – “Moghedien’s insane, Graendal’s a vain idiot, and the boys couldn’t execute a plan even if they were under Compulsion”. Rand has her respect, because of what he is, while Ishamael has her partial attention because he stands in her way.

Lanfear is iconic, and we love to watch her on a rampage, but she would not be half as interesting if she were simply evil for the sake of being evil. While the Dark One wants to break the Wheel of Time to restore the universe to its natural state of chaos, and Ishamael believes that breaking the Wheel will end the cycle of violence and suffering, Lanfear – unsurprisingly – could not care less what happens to the world, as long as she and Rand walk away from the Last Battle hand-in-hand. She loved the last Dragon before Rand, Lews Therin Telamon, and when he left her for his eventual wife, she turned to the Dark to get him back. With all that said, I do hope the show eventually delves a bit more into who Lanfear was before the Breaking, including her work as a quantum physicist and her involvement in releasing the Dark One, because there’s more to her, too, than her relationship with that scummy dude.

The Wheel Of Time has taken an empathetic approach to many of its villains (with the notable and appropriate exception of the imperialist Seanchan); Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) is among the most three-dimensional characters in the series, which is incredible given that Robert Jordan wrote her to be the exact opposite, a mustache-twirling minor antagonist whose schemes were repeatedly foiled by her own unamusing incompetence. Fleetwood’s Liandrin, apart from being complex and compelling, is also extremely capable. She sidesteps every trap laid for her, and does what she can, with the limited power at her disposal, to walk a fine line through the gray area between Light and Dark. She turns Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoe Robins) and Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) over to the Seanchan as prisoners, as expected of her, but frees her beloved Nynaeve just before exiting through the Waygate and stranding them there with High Lady Suroth – who is incompetent and only succeeds at collecting Egwene, letting Nynaeve and Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney) slip through her (now significantly shorter) fingernails.

Katie Leung as Yassica and Meera Syal as Verin Mathwin in The Wheel Of Time, seated next to each other on a couch, staring down at a piece of parchment. Yassica has short dark hair pulled into a low bun, and wears a brown sweater over a white blouse and a long brown dress. Verin has short gray hair, and wears a light brown gown over a white blouse. She is peering through a golden monocle on a chain around her neck.
Yassica and Verin Mathwin | press.amazonstudios.com

Back at the White Tower, the sudden disappearance of three very powerful Novices does not go unnoticed, but someone – Liandrin or another Darkfriend amongst the Aes Sedai – has already contrived a cover-story; that the girls received permission to attend Elayne’s brother Gawyn’s nameday ceremony in Caemlyn. Furthermore, the same someone used a forbidden weave of Compulsion (essentially mind-control) on the kindly Mistress of Novices, Sheriam Bayanar (Rima Te Wiata), to make her write the blatant lie into her log, breaking the Three Oaths…unless, of course, Sheriam is a Darkfriend herself? In a short amount of time, the show does a fairly good job of making the viewer feel suddenly unsure of who to trust, just as the books did when the so-called “Black Ajah” made up of Darkfriends first came to light.

I’m a little sad that Egwene and Nynaeve couldn’t participate in the investigation of the Black Ajah, as they did in the books, but I would gladly watch an entire spin-off series focused on Verin Mathwin (Meera Syal) and her fellow sisters of the Brown Ajah playing at being detectives in their stead, taking on a different Darkfriend each week. If the lovably quirky Brown Yassica seems familiar, by the way, that’s probably because she’s played by Katie Leung, best known as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter series and as the voice of Caitlyn in Arcane: League Of Legends (though as Yassica, Dundee-born Leung speaks with the strong Scottish accent she’s spoken in the past about wanting to use more frequently).

Another recognizable face in episode five is that of Will Tudor (Olyvar in Game Of Thrones, and Sebastian in Shadowhunters), who joins the ensemble cast of The Wheel Of Time as Moiraine’s foppish nephew, Barthanes Damodred, soon to be the King of Cairhien through marriage to Queen Galldrian. Moiraine’s interactions with her family continue to be surprisingly meaningful, probably ranking among her best scenes in the series despite having the least basis in the source material, though the very subtle references or allusions being made to the ruination of House Damodred during the Aiel War by Moiraine’s uncle will likely fly over most viewers’ heads, as I don’t feel the show has done enough to connect those dots. With the Aiel being introduced properly in this episode, you’d think this would be the perfect moment to expand on their lore.

But that’s why I’m here, to provide you with answers to all your questions. In short, the Aiel are a society of primarily red-haired warriors who come from the Waste beyond the Spine of the World, and follow a complex system of honor and indebtment called ji’e’toh. They are divided into several clans and subdivided into dozens of individual “septs” – Aviendha (Ayoola Smart), whom Perrin first meets as a prisoner of the Whitecloaks in this episode, is of the Nine Valleys Sept of the Taardad Aiel, for instance. She and many other Maidens of the Spear were sent west across the Spine in search of their prophesied Car’a’carn, or “Chief of Chiefs” (no bonus points for guessing who that might be). Aviendha is one of the most important characters in The Wheel Of Time going forward, and bringing her into the story at this early stage makes sense from a writing perspective, though I’m of two minds on how the writers actually went about it – lifting Aviendha out of her subplot with Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne and transplanting her in Perrin’s subplot, replacing Gaul as the Aiel he rescues from a cage, incurring much toh.

The change is logical in the short-term – Aviendha is by far the more relevant of the two characters, and needed a momentous opening scene – but in the long-run, it’s hard to believe that Perrin and Aviendha will have many more opportunities to interact, while her, Nynaeve, Egwene, and Elayne (colloquially referred to as the “Wondergirls”) form enduring connections in the books and share many of their greatest moments in future storylines between them. Losing Gaul also means changes to Perrin’s arc, though they might not be quite as consequential if Gaul is introduced early next season, before Perrin’s The Shadow Rising arc kicks off. And while I don’t necessarily expect anyone to take me seriously on this, it also means Perrin is missing the source of all the homoerotic tension in his storyline. Thankfully, Dain Bornhald (Jay Duffy) steps in to fill that role quite effectively.

Dain is one of these characters that got tiring to read about in the books after a while because his relationship to Perrin was just so tenuous and one-dimensional, but Dain in the show is a different story. Him and Perrin have chemistry, however you want to interpret it. Maybe they’re just totally platonic bros who share drinks by candlelight and give each other cute nicknames and bond over their trauma. I’m not sure I buy it, with the way Dain was checking Perrin out, but it’s possible. Either way, having them interact before the season finale – and the event that shapes both their futures – was a smart choice.

The Whitecloaks, of which Dain is a part, are extremely important in the finale, and I would have liked more setup for their storyline, but the episode was already juggling a large number of subplots and one more thing on top of the pile might well have been too many. We don’t even see Dónal Finn’s Mat, and still there’s a lot going on. Two scenes that definitely needed more room to breathe were the capture of Egwene by the Seanchan and the reunion between Moiraine and Rand – the former could have used an extra few minutes of action, the latter even just a few additional lines of dialogue. Of course, with more and longer episodes per season, this wouldn’t be a problem, but The Wheel Of Time is just one of many large-scale streaming series’ being undermined by time constraints for which there is no good reason. We’re past the middle-point of the season now. The people who are still watching are probably more likely to be put off by a lack screentime rather than by an overabundance of it. Amazon really needs to give its best fantasy show everything it’s earned with this incredible second season, including ten episodes (though I wouldn’t be opposed to twelve), each at least an hour and ten minutes long, and a larger budget so that the VFX isn’t spread thin and we can visit more locations.

Jay Duffy as Dain Bornhald sitting across from Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara (whose back is turned to the camera) at a table outdoors, every inch of which seems to be covered with low candles providing a slightly romantic atmosphere. Dain is wearing a brown mantle over his clothes, and black leather gloves. He has short blonde hair swept to one side and a beard.
Perrin Aybara and Dain Bornhald | press.amazonstudios.com

What the writers, directors, cast, and showrunner have done with this episode is elevate The Wheel Of Time once again to a point you don’t think can possibly be surpassed – only to top themselves again the week after. Episode four was the exception, not the rule, and although with the season now completed I can say for certain that the seventh and eighth episodes don’t quite surpass the highest highs of episodes three, five, and six, my favorites, the difference is largely a matter of which characters I believe were underutilized or misrepresented as a book reader, and not really a reflection on the show’s quality. The Wheel Of Time is an excellent adaptation, the best kind in fact: one that takes risks by making bold, purposeful changes to the source material while honoring the themes and tone of the books. Nailing the blend of unserious, delightfully irreverent campiness and drama played completely straight was probably the trickiest part, but they got it. I walked away from episode five craving more of the Forsaken, their sexually charged interactions with just about everybody, and that unmistakable queerness that is woven into the very fabric of this fantasy world.

I can’t speak for all of us in the fandom, but I know that’s what I’ve been looking for from this adaptation. The Wheel Of Time has always been high camp. It’s just finally embracing it.

Episode Rating: 9/10

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“The Wheel Of Time” Season 2, Episode 4 – An Underwhelming Mystery Unravels

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME, SEASON 2, EPISODES 1 – 4, AND BOOK 2, THE GREAT HUNT, AHEAD!

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Amazon’s The Wheel Of Time has one bad habit it needs to break. You may recall that the first season was structured around the premise that one of its five main characters was unwittingly walking around with the power to save the world or break it – a high-stakes mystery with the potential to be extremely engaging. In Robert Jordan’s fourteen-volume series of books by the same title, it’s fairly obvious from the first chapter of The Eye Of The World which of these five is the so-called “Dragon Reborn”, because we go on to spend roughly 75% of the book in his head, and there are only two other contenders, but the Chosen One story has been told a million times and more, so for the show, screentime was divided (somewhat) fairly between five potential Dragons to encourage the intriguing idea that it could be any one of them. All good changes, honestly.

Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor and Natasha O'Keefe as Lanfear in The Wheel Of Time, standing outside at night. Rand is channeling golden threads of the One Power that wind around his arms, while Lanfear hovers over his right shoulder, her face partially obscured by her long jet-black hair.
Lanfear and Rand | polygon.com

But an engaging mystery is one that allows for some degree of…well, engagement. And that can’t happen when all of the relevant information is being withheld. Obviously, some deception and misdirection is to be taken for granted, but when the general audience has access to none of the clues that the characters do, they become passive observers instead of active participants. Throughout The Wheel Of Time‘s first season, this is pretty much exactly what happened. Fans new to the series weren’t given the chance or the means to figure out the answer on their own without resorting to the books, while fans of the books waited impatiently for the reveal, inevitably underwhelming given the smaller amount of screentime allotted to him in the show, that Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) was the Dragon. Then again, perhaps it was obvious after Barney Harris left the show that the only other white man in the main cast would turn out to be the protagonist (they are all of them ta’veren, to be fair, but I don’t expect the average person to know what the heck that means, yet).

Anyway, while The Wheel Of Time‘s quality has improved massively from the first season to the second as a result of the writers learning from their early missteps, this is one area where they need to do better, because in a much stronger second season it’s all the more jarring when the show falls back, even briefly, into old habits – and mercifully, the time spent delaying the reveal that Natasha O’Keefe’s character “Selene” is the alias of the Forsaken Lanfear is relatively brief, though that arguably only makes it harder to justify when every second counts; a philosophy we’ve seen reflected in the decision to drop the series’ beautiful animated intro for an extra minute and a half of screentime per episode.

Once again, fans of the show were given little to none of the information they would need to solve the mystery. Once again, book readers didn’t gain much from the experience except frustration at watching others struggle to speculate and theorize. And once again, the mystery was ultimately detrimental to the characters entangled in it. Most egregiously, this was not a mystery that needed to exist in the first place.

For comparison, while Lanfear does not make her identity known to Rand in The Great Hunt, it is at the very least abundantly obvious that the woman she claims to be, a Cairhienin noblewoman named Selene, does not exist, and there are enough clues pointing to her being Lanfear that, long before it’s officially revealed at the end of the book, the observant reader will have started to suspect a connection. Around the same time Rand first encounters her, conveniently trapped with him in a mirror-world that can only be accessed by channeling at a Portal-stone, Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) dreams of a woman standing over Rand – “her face was in shadow, but her eyes seemed to shine like the moon, and Egwene had known she was evil”. And although she can’t place a name to the woman, we can, because the name Lanfear is mentioned early in the book; much earlier than in the show, where it’s not until the opening of episode four that viewers will hear the name amidst other words in the Old Tongue recited by Ishamael (Fares Fares) as he shatters the ancient seal containing Lanfear.

It’s only about an hour later that the name is repeated, this time with some context, when the Warder Ihvon (Emmanuel Imani) – oddly – becomes the first character in the show to read aloud the so-called Dark Prophecy that has been in al’Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney)’s possession since episode two, intercut with shots of Selene tying Rand to a bed and of Lanfear rising, drenched in blood, from the cave-floor where Ishamael found her, Ishamael’s voice in the background gradually superseding Ihvon’s to finish the verse. The whole scene is terrifically entertaining, but the reveal itself lacks weight. We’re told that Lanfear is Forsaken, which at this point in the season still has only a vague meaning for those who haven’t read the books (or my post on the subject). We don’t know anything about who or what she is, specifically, and we don’t have any sense of her potential power. Up to this point, we’ve known her as a fun-loving free spirit, and not much else.

Now, to be fair, I’m sure many folks assumed Selene was a Darkfriend like the last innkeeper who tried to seduce Rand (remember Dana?), so there may have been a bit of connecting-the-dots going on already, but O’Keefe plays her innocence almost too well in response to Rand’s tearful confession that he can channel at the end of episode four, to the point where it’s unclear exactly what her character is trying to accomplish, even in retrospect. She acts shocked and scared, pushes Rand away, and then starts reeling him back in when he actually tries to leave. I’ve watched this scene enough times now that I feel like I should understand what she wanted from Rand here, and I can only guess that she was steering him towards making a declaration of love for her – which she does get out of him eventually, albeit in a roundabout way.

Unfortunately, whatever emotional impact this moment could have had on Rand is short-lived, as Lanfear is seemingly killed just a few minutes later by Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), who is able to get close enough to the Forsaken to stab her and cut her throat before she has a chance to react – unexpected perk of being shielded or stilled; she’s practically invisible to other channelers now. It strains plausibility slightly that one of the Forsaken, especially one as dexterous with the Power as Lanfear, would not instinctively counterattack at the exact instant that Moiraine’s blade pierced her skin, but I can’t be mad about it, not when it’s just such a powerful moment for Moiraine, who hasn’t had many this season. To add insult to literal injury, she actually tosses the Forsaken headfirst onto the hardwood floor with a sickening thud. Marking a major deviation from the books, however, Moiraine clarifies to Rand as they run for their lives that killing a Forsaken with mortal weapons would be impossible, which at least heightens the stakes exponentially.

I would have liked to see whatever it was that led Moiraine to the conclusion that Selene was Lanfear (though I wouldn’t entirely put it past her to stab a woman based on nothing more than a hunch). She spends some time in the Foregate of Cairhien, asking after Rand, but I can’t help but feel the writers missed an opportunity for her to investigate the innkeeper with him. However, Lanfear was smart to disguise herself as someone so lowly no one would even think to question where she came from (if a Cairhienin noblewoman had been traipsing around the Foregate with a commoner, that would surely have received attention), and understandably, Moiraine’s focus was on locating Rand, to the exclusion of all else, even her own sister.

Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred in The Wheel Of Time, sitting in a room with gold-and-black paneled walls. She has a saucer resting on her lap, and is lifting a black tea-cup to her lips. She is wearing a wide-sleeved dark blue robe cinched at the waist with a wide blue-and-gold cloth belt over a long-sleeved white knitted blouse. A single blue gemstone sits on a slender golden diadem above her brow. The Great Serpent ring on her left hand sports a larger, darker, polished blue gemstone.
Moiraine Damodred | press.amazonstudios.com

Much to Moiraine’s obvious discomfort, it’s her sister, Anvaere Damodred (Lindsay Duncan), to whom she ultimately has to turn for information about Rand’s whereabouts, when her own eyes-and-ears network produces few results. Pike has mentioned in interviews that The Wheel Of Time‘s guest-stars are always given some of the juiciest material to work with, and no lies were told. Duncan’s performance is, of course, powerful, but it helps that she’s working from a script that favors her character. The episode opens on Anvaere as she prepares to face another exhausting day as head of the fractured Damodred household, piling her snow-white hair under a wig and applying makeup before receiving visitors, the first of whom on this particular day is Moiraine, whom we learn has not come home to Cairhien in roughly twenty years, ever since her hunt for the Dragon Reborn began. The stiff reunion between long-estranged sisters is cut short by Moiraine declaring she has business in the city that takes priority over having a cup of tea – a remark that Anvaere files away for later, when she forces Moiraine to sit and share tea with her before telling her where Rand has gone.

Their iciness is presented in stark contrast to the warmth and acceptance that Lan finds when he returns to the abode of Alanna Mosvani (Priyanka Bose), the sensual Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah to whom his care was entrusted by Moiraine. The parallels don’t end there. Alanna’s homestead on the grasslands of Arafel is compact, with narrow rooms and hallways, built from humble sun-bleached stone around a central courtyard, whereas Moiraine’s childhood home in the center of urban Cairhien is massive, its labyrinth of rooms each richly furnished, with tiled floors and paneled walls. Most significantly, Alanna’s home is crowded with members of her extended family who manage all the housework and cooking between them, while Moiraine’s is practically empty but for her and Anvaere, a butler, and the servants in the kitchen.

We don’t get to see many examples of Aes Sedai having family-lives outside the White Tower in Jordan’s books, so in theory I should have loved these scenes with Alanna, but I found Lan’s subplot to be a drag on the episode. He’s never been my favorite character, on account of being the silent, stoic, noble type that I generally find uninteresting, but I tolerated him throughout the first season because I enjoyed his dynamic with Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins), and how they were able to chip away at each other’s facades. This season, that relationship has been put on the back-burner. While Lan is used as a motivating factor for Nynaeve (and we saw during the Trial of the Arches that she would abandon the Aes Sedai for him), Lan has not mentioned her even once, and it’s getting on my nerves. That and the fact that the lessons he’s been learning from Alanna’s Warders about honesty and emotional vulnerability are lessons he started learning in season one as a result of Stepin’s death, making much of this feel redundant.

Some of it is also attributable to Maksim (Taylor Napier) and Ihvon, Alanna’s Warders, being two of the dullest characters on The Wheel Of Time, with an exorbitant amount of screentime each. I suppose I should be thankful that two explicitly queer male characters, our only two with the possible exception of Ishamael, are being given a bit more screentime, but neither actor, Napier least of the two, comes across as well-equipped for dramatic scenes. They’re now so inextricable from Alanna that I want to see less of her as a result, which is a shame, because Bose herself is everything an Aes Sedai ought to be – self-assured, powerful, enigmatic, with an innate and devastating elegance.

Another Aes Sedai coming to serve this season is Jennifer Cheon Garcia’s Leane Sharif, the Keeper of the Chronicles, who has maybe two minutes of screentime, tops, and still stands out due to her statuesque posture and impeccable taste in fashion. Her unconventional high-collared top, palest gold with dark blue peacock-feather embroidery, coupled with a flowy floor-length dark blue dress, is a combination that will live rent-free in my mind for a long time. She also has an extensive arc throughout the books, and I hope that The Wheel Of Time was foreshadowing that with some of the…ominous dialogue between her and Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood). I’d love to see Leane become the fan-favorite supporting character for viewers that she is for book-readers, though it might take time: her name has yet to be used on the show, so most people probably just know her as the tall, stylish Aes Sedai.

I have high hopes, given how well other minor characters from the books have fared on the show. Liandrin being not merely a likeable character but a fascinating one was unthinkable to me before the season aired. The books never developed her. She was a Darkfriend, a fairly petty and incompetent one at that, and nothing she did in The Wheel Of Time‘s first season gave me any reason to believe that had changed. But Fleetwood and the writers have shaped her into one of the series’ most compelling antiheroes. Yes, she’s still a Darkfriend, as we learn in this episode when she breaks the Three Oaths and takes Nynaeve, Egwene, and Elayne Trakand (Ceara Coveney) captive. But the betrayal cuts so deeply because Fleetwood had us all starting to trust her, against our better judgment. Even Nynaeve had come to respect her, begrudgingly. Liandrin knew that, exploited it, but every word she spoke to Nynaeve was laced with bitter sincerity, delivered with an unmistakable tinge in her voice of regret and crushing shame that she knows she won’t do anything to prevent herself from making unforgivable decisions when the time comes.

In episode four, Liandrin and Nynaeve share a particularly powerful scene in the testing-room beside the three Arches, where in the previous episode Nynaeve lived a whole life alongside Lan and lost him, her friends, and her daughter. Liandrin’s advice for coping with the pain is to “find a piece of this world that belongs to you, and you hold on to it…and then, when it’s finally gone, you find another”, but of course, she still can’t let go of the first thing in her life that ever belonged to her; her son, now an old man whose death she has delayed as long as humanly possible, even turning to the Dark in the desperate hope that one of the Forsaken could heal him. She never really intended to find another piece to hold on to, until Nynaeve entered her life and accidentally became her treasured student. And when Nynaeve asks her point-blank what she’s found to replace her son, Liandrin switches the subject, reminded in that moment that her orders are to bring Nynaeve to Falme and deliver her to Ishamael.

Liandrin tells Nynaeve that Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) was captured by the Seanchan on the western coast – which is technically true, although she leaves out, or more likely wasn’t told, that Perrin already escaped from the Seanchan with Elyas Machera (Gary Beadle) and is now wandering around in the woods, trusting the older, more experienced Wolfbrother to guide him to Falme. I’m biased, because early-book Perrin was one of my favorite characters from The Wheel Of Time (early-book Perrin, before he became insufferable to read about), but his one scene with Elyas and the wolf-pack is my favorite of the entire episode, and its chief redeeming factor. Something about seeing him smile for what feels like the first time, as he tentatively starts to accept who he is, resonates with me as strongly now as it did in the books, though it took him much longer in the books to work through the initial fear that he would devolve into something less than human.

Priyanka Bose as Alanna Mosvani in The Wheel Of Time, standing in her outdoor kitchen and smiling as she leans over a large pot.
Alanna Mosvani | press.amazonstudios.com

There’s a lot of queer subtext in Perrin’s storyline (in retrospect, I think that was always a large part of why it spoke to me), and the only thing that could conceivably make me happier with the show’s adaptation is if The Wheel Of Time leans into that. Perrin’s borderline canonical boyfriend Gaul needs to get here fast, because the show already has me shipping Perrin with Dain Bornhald to fill the void in my heart, and that’s simply unacceptable. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t toyed with the idea of shipping them before, given Dain’s vaguely homoerotic obsession with Perrin in the books, and I can’t deny they’re both very attractive in the show, and I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to them helping each other work through their internalized homophobia-adjacent traumas, but…it’s still Dain Bornhald. Anyway, that’s a subject best left for my review of episode five.

To conclude: episode four, Daughter Of The Night, just barely earns its title, building slowly to an underwhelming reveal and restraining Natasha O’Keefe until the last few seconds before the credits roll, when Lanfear’s eyes snap open, filled with swirling black specks of the True Power called saa, to indicate (again though, only to book-readers) that she’s exerting all her strength to hold her soul in her body and recover from the wounds Moiraine inflicted. Only then does the episode live up to what was promised with that title. Were those few seconds worth the time I feel was largely wasted getting to that point? In a season consisting of just eight episodes, some not quite an hour long, frankly, the answer is no. Thankfully, episode five hits the ground running and delivers on the Lanfear front. And if the last two episodes can stick the landing, I’ll barely recall this bump in the road when all is said and done.

Episode Rating: 7.9/10

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“The Wheel Of Time” Season 2, Episode 1 – Vindication For The First Season’s Flawed Finale

MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHEEL OF TIME SEASON 2, EPISODES 1 – 3 AHEAD!

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.

I wrote once that The Wheel Of Time‘s season one finale was a necessarily messy episode of television, having to hurriedly clear pieces off the board and wipe it clean so that season two could jump into a new game in a new setting (narratively and thematically as well as physically), and no longer be burdened with the consequences of working around COVID-19, star Barney Harris’ sudden departure, and the occasional incoherence of the source material itself, which piled up in the back-half of season one and threatened to bog down what was otherwise an enjoyable, fast-paced trek along the margins of Robert Jordan’s expansive world. Nearly two years later, I am pleased to report that my prediction has come to pass, as surely as any of Min Farshaw’s foretellings. The Wheel Of Time hits the ground running in its second season specifically because of the dirty work done in season one, episode eight.

Fares Fares as Ishamael in The Wheel Of Time season two, wearing a dark coat, kneeling in short grass while holding the hands of a small girl wearing a red and blue dress. Behind them looms a massive Trolloc, man-shaped but with the face of a boar, with antlers sprouting from its head. It is night, and fog is rolling in.
Ishamael at the Darkfriend Social | telltaletv.com

The choice to depower Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) at the Eye of the World, controversial at the time, is one that forces Pike to resituate herself in her character’s fundamentally altered body and mind, and to which the Oscar-nominated actress responds enthusiastically by punching jagged holes in the façade of unreadable micro-expressions and mannerisms that Moiraine was accustomed to using as a shield, gaps in her defenses through which her raw humanity now spills in angry torrents, deliberately aimed to hurt the one person staying and trying – in his eyes, harder than Moiraine herself has ever tried – to patch up her wounds, who will continue to fail and hurt himself in the process as long as he refuses to acknowledge that these wounds run far too deep for him to heal; her loyal Warder, al’Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney). The more Lan tries to force Moiraine to talk through her grief, the more she pulls away from him and the wider the rift between them grows. They can’t get on the same page without the Bond to guide them in the right direction, and so in the first episode’s final minutes Moiraine runs, deeming it safer for them both if she does, only to have all her fears and doubts confirmed when Lan follows and nearly kills himself to protect her. The devolution of what once seemed an indestructible relationship founded in mutual trust is the episode’s central through line, around which all other plot-threads must loosely swirl, reflecting how the characters find themselves being buffeted by the winds of change to far-flung corners of the world at the beginning of season two.

But the wind lifts each of these threads and binds them to the others before episode’s end in a sequence that appropriately brings the Wheel of Time almost full-circle, as Bel-Tine lanterns last lit on the fateful night before the Emond’s Field Five left home – a year earlier, in-universe – now flicker once again on a stream in Arad Doman where Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) makes camp alongside Shienaran soldiers, on the stone windowsill of a room in the White Tower where Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) and Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins) find fleeting moments of comfort amidst their grueling training, and on a street-corner in the scaffolding-encased city of Cairhien where Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski), the Dragon Reborn, waits patiently for madness to consume his soul. Dónal Finn’s Mat Cauthon, meanwhile, makes do without a lantern in the White Tower dungeon where we find him languishing, months after he abandoned his friends to go after a cursed dagger. Wherever these places are in relation to each other and Emond’s Field (and, for the viewer unfamiliar with a map of the Westlands, there really isn’t any indication), this scene forcefully reiterates that home is never far from any of our main characters’ hearts, and that right now, more than anything, they yearn for what they’ve lost.

With the exception of Rand, who doesn’t appear again until episode two, each of these characters, and Moiraine and Lan, face challenges in the premiere that test how far they’re willing to go, and what they’re willing to lose, to become the heroes they need to be if they’re to have any hope of winning the coming Last Battle – and no one is feeling the pressure more than Nynaeve, the most powerful channeler to train at the White Tower in a thousand years, who has subconsciously developed a ‘block’ that prevents her from channeling except in moments of extreme anger, fear, and sorrow. Every Aes Sedai in the Tower craves the prestige that would come from being the one to break Nynaeve’s block and guide her to greatness, making all their efforts to help seem insincere, but the one who finally coaxes a reaction out of her during a particularly brutal session is also the one Nynaeve trusts the least; Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) of the authoritarian Red Ajah, a woman who represents everything Nynaeve detests most about the Aes Sedai and their White Tower.

To say that Fleetwood is a standout from the first three episodes would be an understatement. She is utterly electrifying, and no one on The Wheel Of Time, with the exception of Fleetwood’s frequent scene-partner Zoë Robins, is more deserving of critical recognition for their work this season (and we will talk about Robins in my review of episode three), though all the cast are perhaps equally worthy and there are several others I’d single out for praise in the first episode alone, including Madden, who brims with charisma; Rutherford, who has settled comfortably into a middle-ground between learned stoicism and innate vulnerability after being emotionally paralyzed by the narrative for much of season one; and the delightful pairing of Meera Syal and Nila Aalia as exasperated eccentric Verin Mathwin and playful flirt Adeleas, Aes Sedai of the Brown Ajah who inject energy into Moiraine’s slow-paced storyline. Dónal Finn, who I will highlight in my review of episode two, quickly joins the likes of Robins, Fleetwood, and Pike with a performance I can only describe as enthralling.

With the younger members of the cast having each developed a strong, distinctive acting-style and synergizing effortlessly with each other and the veterans of stage and screen who surround them, the responsibility of carrying The Wheel Of Time can now be shared more evenly amongst them all, and I’m sure that after dedicating so much of her time in recent years to the character of Moiraine, there must be a part of Rosamund Pike that welcomes the opportunity to take a step back and proudly witness that transition occur. With that said, she is likely to continue serving as the series’ iconic mascot as long as her name alone can pull in new viewers, and it would be criminal in any case to neglect an actress of her caliber, or even expect her to be content with the relatively small and insignificant role her character plays in The Great Hunt and The Dragon Reborn, the second and third books in Robert Jordan’s monumental fourteen-volume series. Finding an appropriate balance going forward will surely be the hardest task facing showrunner Rafe Judkins, though to date, fleshing out Moiraine’s storyline with material derived from the prequel novel New Spring, including information about her early years that sadly never became relevant in the main series, has proven a satisfying workaround and opens new pathways that ultimately connect her back to Rand and other characters.

The very notion of changes to the order of events in the books is understandably nerve-wracking to some, and blasphemous to others, but while there are major changes, each and every one has been made with the essence of the characters in mind…and what’s more, even changes that could not have been avoided are executed in such a way that they could not feel more organic. For example, it’s Perrin, instead of Rand, who has the closest relationship with Ingtar Shinowa (Gregg Chilingirian, quietly exceptional in the role), and while on the surface it’s a change that could seem random, a product of circumstances more than anything else, a closer reading of Ingtar’s words to Perrin near the end of episode one as the two discuss Padan Fain (Johann Myers)’s motivations for joining the Dark reveals that it’s an exquisite adjustment made to service both their arcs in ways I can’t wait to explain after the season finale (no spoilers in the comments, please!). And remember, this beautiful scene wouldn’t exist were it not for Perrin being the one to awkwardly run into Fain in Fal Dara last season solely because someone had to fill Mat’s place.

Dónal Finn as Mat Cauthon in The Wheel Of Time, lying on a wooden bench in a dimly-lit room with his head leaning on the armrest, tears rolling down his cheeks as he stares at a flickering candle-flame in the foreground. He has brown curly hair and a beard. He is wearing an olive-green coat over a greenish-brown tattered shirt.
Mat Cauthon | cosmopolitan.com

And that brings me to an even better example, which is, of course, Mat’s entire storyline this season. While it was never planned or predicted that Barney Harris would leave The Wheel Of Time midway through filming season one, necessitating that his character be written off the show temporarily with a myriad of clumsy excuses, you wouldn’t guess it from the way it’s been gracefully handled in season two. I feel safe in stating that there’s nothing Mat does in the first three books that would have more perfectly illustrated to the audience exactly who he is and everything he struggles with than what Judkins came up with as a hasty backup plan for his character. To pull that off, as well as the recasting, in the middle of a pandemic, must have required a coalescence of imagination and ingenuity Hollywood can never hope to replicate with an AI.

Outstanding actors working from an excellent script could convince the audience that any four walls are a palace or a prison, but The Wheel Of Time is an epic fantasy greater in scale than almost any other, and that wasn’t always evident from the first season, which could only afford to visit three or four primary locations across eight episodes, with about the same number of outfits for each main character, or fewer. But an evidently sizable expansion to the series’ budget has allowed the production designers, costume designers, hairstylists, makeup artists, and propmakers in every field and art-form to go absolutely wild this season, filling every nook and cranny of this world with detailing pulled straight from the books. The White Tower, so obviously a single soundstage decorated slightly differently for various scenes in the first season, now feels like an entire ecosystem nestled in the beating heart of Tar Valon, itself much larger and more vibrant this season. The women of the Aes Sedai not only dress like actual people instead of being restricted to the color of their respective Ajah, they also dress fabulously, in patterned silks, laces, velvets, and furs, bedecked in precious stones and metals – everything I was missing from their introduction in season one, essentially. If costume designer Sharon Gilham alone walks away with an Emmy for her work this season, it will not be enough but nor will it be undeserved.

On a similar note, the CGI has improved substantially between seasons and the ‘weaves’ constructed by channelers from glinting threads of the One Power are far more intricate now, containing colors besides cloudy white, including vivid shades of gold, silver, and amber. These threads wind differently for each woman (and man), some as vague and ethereal as ribbons swirling in a breeze, some as sharply defined and precise as the razor-edged cord of a garrote. Nynaeve, because of her block, tends to channel messily when she channels at all, and her weaves are loose, ragged. Liandrin has a dexterity with the Power we have yet to see matched by any channeler save the Forsaken Ishamael (Fares Fares), her weaves forming long, thrashing whips. And Egwene…well, Egwene has been teaching herself to channel without the use of her hands, and we finally see her do so in episode three, though her weaves of sinuous flame are easily extinguished by Liandrin. It’ll be quite interesting to see how Moiraine uses the Power, assuming she’s unshielded by Rand or Siuan this season (I have no doubt in my mind she’s shielded, not stilled, as she seems to believe).

Even with an increased budget, however, I would never say that The Wheel Of Time relies at any point on its CGI, and in fact the continued use of practical effects wherever possible is perhaps one of the series’ most exciting and endearing qualities from a filmmaking perspective. In the first episode’s climactic action sequence, Moiraine is ambushed on the road by three Fades, the most vaguely humanoid of Shadowspawn. Bereft of the abilities she would ordinarily use to fight back, she hides for a moment to weigh her options, draws a knife, and begins stalking her unseen enemies through patches of shadow on the ground. The resulting battle is shot and choreographed to seem totally, brutally grounded, something I think is largely attributable to the fact that you can feel the presence of every actor and stunt performer in the scene, the weight and impact of every sword-thrust, kick, and hit. The Fades feel like a real threat because they are real, making their unnerving speed and strength more incredible, and their weaknesses more believable.

The season’s primary antagonists, Ishamael and Padan Fain, are relegated to small roles in the suspense-driven first episode, which allows our anticipation to grow with each passing moment that we know and the characters know that they’re just off-camera, observing quietly. Fain is one of the book series’ most terrifying villains, his deeds in service to the Dark downright stomach-turning, and I feel that was captured in the early scene where Perrin and the Shienarans come across the wreckage of a Tuatha’an caravan and the bodies of several Darkfriends killed by Fain for no other reason than to whittle down his competition. Perrin’s wolf-senses allow him to relive the carnage as it happened (interestingly, the girl that he sees escaping the massacre, whose fate is still unknown, is the very same girl who befriended Ishamael in the cold-open), further deepening his distaste for violence, his discomfort in his own body, and his distrust of Elyas Machera (Gary Beadle), the golden-eyed “sniffer” who shares his abilities. While it would have been nice to see Elyas in the first season, holding off his introduction meant effectively isolating Perrin, giving him more legitimate reasons to build barriers between himself and the wolves that we’ll see him topple gradually, reluctantly, over the course of this season.

If there is any cause for concern to be found in the first episode, it is the absence of Sophie Okonedo, who appears to have only filmed an episode or two as Siuan Sanche, the Amyrlin Seat of the Aes Sedai, greatly reducing both the amount of time we can expect her to share with Egwene and Nynaeve this season (if any), and her potential future involvement in storylines at the White Tower that…revolved around Siuan in the books. With the character of Elaida yet to be introduced, however, it seems those storylines may not be established at all until season three, which I think is a terrible mistake. Then again, if Mat’s character arc could be resuscitated and restored to full health in the span of a few minutes with Dónal Finn, I have faith that Sophie Okonedo and whichever extremely talented actress is cast as Elaida can convince me of their decades-long rivalry in no time at all.

Madeleine Madden as Egwene al'Vere in The Wheel Of Time season two, standing before a table in a dimly-lit kitchen, wearing a gray apron over a long-sleeved white gown.
Egwene al’Vere | polygon.com

In short, the first episode of season two finally elevates the series a step above season one – and above most of the competition – in every way. The Wheel Of Time is even more epic and more thrilling in this Turning, its cast even stronger, its worldbuilding even richer. There is no comparing the two seasons, really, because the difference is night and day, and I say that as someone who enjoyed most of the first season and still rewatches my favorite episodes, three, five, and six, frequently. Season one was good, at times great, and offered fleeting glimpses of what The Wheel Of Time could be. Season two is phenomenal television that finally lives up to what was promised, and doesn’t waste a second of screentime in doing so.

Episode Rating: 9/10